Our Pie Run weekend story...
My wife, Susan (tortuga), and I made this event a 4-day weekend - Thursday thru Sunday. Scott (STScott) was looking forward to his very first Pie Run since his schedule finally allowed it, and he was one of the driving factors behind the 4-day weekend (we could not leave him unsupervised
).
The plans:
Thurs: travel down to Ingleside, take courthouse pictures
Fri: Meet Scott & tour
Lady Lex and Texas State Aquarium, eat sea food
Sat: Leave morning open and the the Pie Event for most of the afternoon, maybe sneak some additional courthouse pics
Sun: travel home, take courthouse pictures (different ones!)
What happened:
Thurs: traveled south, took courthouse pictures, Susan slides scooter, we take the last 26 miles with a busted scooter & her helmet a mess, leave pile of busted parts beside US77
Fri: Call Progressive, ride 2-up to meet Scott & tour
Lady Lex and Texas State Aquarium, eat lunch with Scott, visit Dynamo Cycle
and buy new helmet and mirror, make some repairs, visit Wal-Mart for Aleve, bandages, and duct tape
Sat: Ride 2-up to Rockport and eat breakfast with Scott at Rockport Bakery
, Susan not feeling well & goes back to bed, make additional repairs on the scooter, do the Pie Event, meet people, try to figure out what to do
Sun: Susan (tough and stubborn) decides to ride home, started home, took courthouse pictures, she is OK with 60-65 mph, at lunch - she wants to slab home, run I35 at 70 mph to Hillsboro - making great time until traffic stopped, so exit at FM310, dumps scooter on other side going into gas station (details to follow)
, decide to try FM310 and loop around, survive 2 miles of hard packed dirt and some gravel (she does great!), finally take SH22, US81, and I35W home...
-------
Here she is when we stopped in Giddings (scooter in great shape):
Folks were very friendly there - one lady stopped to tell us about the restored courtrooms inside the courthouse and another lady came out to give us an event flyer and said her husband was with some other riders in Big Bend.
Most of our trip was on old US77. In Refugio, the GPS was sending us east and I remembered 77 going on to Corpus and picking up 361 to Ingleside, so I over-rode it and kept on 77 (if I had only known
). Close to our turnoff, I had been watching traffic and forgot to check the rearview mirror. Susan wasn't there & wasn't in the blindspot mirror either, or when I looked back. I stopped on the shoulder and thought I saw a MC headlight way back (it turns out she stopped because one of her mirrors "flopped", she didn't want to lose it, so she stopped to tighten it).
As it got closer, I intended to stay put and find out what happened in case I needed to work on something. It was now dusk, I think fatigue had a part and she misjudged that I wasn't moving, hit the brakes and the scoot slipped on the chip seal with an extra measure of gravel and went down on the left side. I watched most of this in horror in my left side mirror. The scoot hit my bike but the energy was expended. It took me a few seconds to get the kickstand down and get off the bike. She was lying face-up with just the tip of her helmet in the right lane. Amazingly, nobody stopped to help.
A quick check for broken biological parts determined that she was OK, more or less. I got her up and away from the highway and then shut off the scoot which was flat on its left side. There were pieces of her windscreen scattered around plus a broken mirror. I piled them up:
She was hurting but not emergency hurting. Her gear did its job. There were bruises that appeared later but it seems the worst was a bruised rib that still bothers her. Want proof gear works? This could have been her face:
The face shield was sprung - one of the little teeny parts was broken. The concern for the integrity of the helmet was the chunk missing on the top.
We were able to limp to the motel. I left a terse (and cryptic according to Squeaky
) note on TWT the next morning. Several people called and others sent PMs. There were several offers of help, providing us with plenty of options. We sure appreciate the TWT folks' concern!
Her scooter sat while we did stuff on Friday and Saturday morning. 2-up on the Wii-Strom was OK, but we decided that we couldn't get home that way. We kept thinking about riding it home. I did some temp repairs before the Pie Run and was concerned about the wind and no screen...
I'll have more on the Pie Run itself when I organize all the pictures. I need to milk the sympathy angle while I still can...
Susan was up early Sunday morning (couldn't sleep) and we were packed and away about 7:30. Here she is with new helmet and Gilkized scooter:
We took the GPS route back to Refugio - it was less travelled and better shoulders, plus an easier ride. If I had only used it on Thursday.
We started out running 50-55 mph but it was no problem with the wind behind us (PTL). As the day wore on, she indicated she could do more, so at lunch she said to take the quickest way possible - which meant I35. So, we took the loop from SH95 around Temple and onto the slab.
We were making great time when everything backed up just south of Hillsboro. There was an exit ahead with a gas station, so we took it and turned in. A pickup was maneuvering for a pump and blocked the way. I stopped, Susan stopped and then put her foot down just off the pavement - a 3 inch drop. Over the scoot goes, this time on the right side. Susan rolls off and into the ditch!
This time several folks were there to help her up and help me pick up the scoot. Again, no serious injuries but there will probably be more bruises.
OK, now what? The slab is crawling. There are county roads to the east but we head onto the packed access road and can see that those are unpaved - we opt to head west on FM310 and loop around to SH22 and then north out of Hillsboro. However, a mile or two down the road and we see "construction - next 3 miles", "fresh oil", and "loose gravel".
Well, it looks hard packed with clean tire tracks, so I charge on, praying (yes, literally!) that it stays that way. It gets a bit worse but she plows through unscathed.
We were both very relieved to see that poor scooter safely parked in the garage just before 6 PM!
At least three of these Pie Runs have been very expensive!
(no, I won't mention the other 2
)
Sorry if that is a lot more than you wanted to hear but you have to endure it in order for me to get to the pictures...